[124]. beoden, prayers: comp. ‘Cheatereð ouwer beoden euere, ase sparuwe deð þet is one,’ AR 174/24: ‘voise disant ses proiores,’ F.
[129]. dame, mistress: each of the anchoresses had her own maids; see 74/208.
[132]. ȝe: the reading of N is preferable: CT have no nominative: ‘Nul hom ne lessent entrer,’ F.
[134]. oboke, by book; comp. ‘Sum is clergesse ⁊ sum nis nout ⁊ mot . . . an oðer wise siggen hire ures,’ AR 6/12. bi, by the repetition of: ‘die par patre nostres,’ F. Comp. AR 24, where the writer describes how the lay brethren of his own order say their hours.
[136]. Comp. ‘So þet me seið ine bisawe, “Vrom mulne ⁊ from cheping, from smiðe ⁊ from ancre huse, me tiðinge bringeð,”’ AR 88/26: Ailred, 641 b.
[140]. to uuel turnen: ‘vnde quis aliquid mali poterit suspicari,’ L.
[141]. heaued clað: ‘coeuere chief,’ F. eiðer ligge ane, let each lie by herself, comes in awkwardly among the directions about their clothes: F has it here, but T after habben, l. 143.
[142]. cop is apparently the caputium of the Gilbertine Rule: ‘Conversae vero laicae sorores vestiantur sicut monachae, cucullis et scapulari exceptis; quorum loco habeant pallia de adultis agnis forrata; et caputia earum mamillas tegentia ad formam scapulariorum sanctimonialium,’ p. *lxxxvii: so a short cape covering the shoulders instead of the longer cloak called scapular. It was to be sewn high on the breast, not closed by a brooch: hence its name hesmel in N, as a garment with a hole for the head to pass through; Icel. hálsmal: istihd in N is probably miswritten for istichd. ‘lour cotes soient par de sus closes par deuant la poitrine sanȝ fermail,’ F.
[143]. unleppet, literally unlapped, not enfolded; ‘desaffublieȝ,’ F: not in their ‘cop’ or ‘hesmel.’ OE. læppa, skirt. unweawed N, ungarmented, means the same thing, not ‘unveiled,’ Morris: comp. OE. wǣfels, pallium, indumentum. open heaued, bare-headed; ‘teste descouerte,’ F. ihudeket C, covered; from *hȳdecian, derivative of hȳdan (NED).
[144]. cussen: the mode of salutation then general among lay folk is forbidden them. For the custom at a much later period see Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey, ed. Singer, p. 171.